September 11th, 2012

Fayyad announces measures to alleviate economic crisis ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency September 11, 2012 - 12:00am RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced several measures on Tuesday to alleviate the economic crisis. VAT will be reduced to 15 percent and diesel, gas and kerosene will revert back to August prices, he said during a Ramallah press conference. Palestinian Authority ministers had met earlier on Tuesday to discuss ways of easing economic hardships as protests erupted across the West Bank this week against rising living costs. » Read more

Will Morsi Offer Change for Gaza? ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Al-Monitor by Sophie Claudet, Saleh Jadallah - (Opinion) September 5, 2012 - 12:00am GAZA CITY – When Egypt reopened the Rafah crossing border with Gaza late last month, Palestinians hailed the move as a possible end to their isolation from the rest of the world after years of near-total closure enforced by both Israel and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. » Read more

Refugees and peace ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post (Editorial) September 10, 2012 - 12:00am ‘Palestinians” are the first people to come to mind when the word “refugee” is uttered in a Middle East context. And Palestinians have paid dearly to reinforce this misconception. Largely dispossessed by their fellow Arabs, Palestinians have lived as second-class citizens in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the region. Palestinians’ dismal treatment by their Arab brethren is undoubtedly due in part to strongly held prejudices and exclusionary nationalist loyalties. » Read more

The defeatism of the left ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) September 11, 2012 - 12:00am The settlers are right. Had today’s Zionist left been leading the Jewish community here in the 1940s there is a good chance we never would have had a state. Had those who lay proud claim to being “the peace camp,” who explain how “it’s impossible to evict 300,000 settlers,” been running the show in the early ‘50s, the Yishuv − with its population of 600,000 − would never have taken in one million Jews. The word “irreversible” does not exist in the vocabulary of the settlers. » Read more

Separated by shared history: The story of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Akiva Eldar - (Opinion) September 11, 2012 - 12:00am This column is dedicated in particular to the radical right-wingers who speak of transferring Israeli-Palestinian villages to the Palestinian side of the Green Line ("willing transfers") and to the despairing left-wingers who recommend the unification of the Israeli residents of Baka al-Garbiyeh with their neighbors in Baka al-Sharkiyeh (the binational state). » Read more

September 10th

A Dream Not Deferred ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Newsweek by Dan Ephron - (Opinion) September 10, 2012 - 12:00am Dror Etkes should have been pleased. Six years ago, the 44-year-old Israeli peace activist asked Israel’s High Court of Justice to intervene in the case of a Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank built on Palestinian farmland. Etkes, who spends much of his time fighting settlement expansion, thought the Migron outpost could be a test case. But when the court finally ordered Israeli authorities to evict the settlement’s 50 families last week, he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate. » Read more

Love, bankruptcy and buffoonery in our region ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Asharq Alawsat by Tariq Alhomayed - (Opinion) September 10, 2012 - 12:00am The Iranian President told his Palestinian counterpart that he loves the Palestinians, prompting Abbas to reply: “For God’s sake, love us all”, i.e. not just Hamas. But it is hard for Ahmadinejad to do that, for Iran and its adherers will not be satisfied with the Palestinians until they are a game in their hands, like Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Assad. » Read more

UN recognition is best course for Palestinians ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National (Editorial) September 10, 2012 - 12:00am The Palestinian Authority is at a crossroads, although many will expect President Mahmoud Abbas to steer along the same deadend track. On Saturday, Mr Abbas repeated a promise to return to the United Nations to press for recognition of Palestinian statehood; and yesterday, the PA proposed renegotiating the Paris Protocols, which govern its economic arrangements with Israel. » Read more

Gaza: an early warning of disaster ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Guardian by Robert Turner - (Opinion) September 9, 2012 - 12:00am The international system is often accused of failing to give adequate early warning; of being myopic and not furnishing the appropriate powers with data and analysis that would allow an effective, timely response to predictable disasters. With the recent publication of the report, Gaza in 2020: a Liveable Place?, it would be hard to level these accusations at the UN country team in the occupied Palestinian territory. » Read more

Obama or Romney? Makes little difference for Israel ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz by Eric H. Yoffie - (Opinion) September 10, 2012 - 12:00am The conventions are finally over.  We have listened to the speeches, seen the videos, and read the platforms.  And as American Jews committed to the Jewish state, we can now say with confidence:  It makes very little difference to Israel who wins this election. There is a single American foreign policy on Israel, embraced by the two major parties, with some differences in style but very modest differences in substance. » Read more